Ellen Under The Stairs (26 page)

"Reasonable," said Golden, the youth
never far behind the Mage.

At some distance, old Tangu and young
Philelph maintained their respectful silence.

"Is that trading floor made of fire
stone?"

"Though I did not make a study of it,"
Coluth answered, trying to remain calm at the memory, "I believe
that to be true."

"Heavy, but easily broken," the Mage
muttered to himself. "And look there," John-Lyon pointing into The
Cinnabar. "If I'm not mistaken, that's Pfnaravin's trail, the grass
so dry there'd be no way to travel through it without snapping it
off."

"That would seem so, sir," Golden
said, a bow often to be discerned in the young man's
voice.

"Only one path because the 'flyers' of
Cinnabar ... fly?"

Coluth looked skyward again. But, like
the last time he was here -- though he knew they must be there --
could see neither man nor bird soaring over head.

* * * * *

It was clear to John that Coluth was
terrified to be on the verge of entering what the admiral always
called The Cinnabar, it following that the rest were similarly
horror stricken, even Mage-Magic unlikely to make them follow him
into this troubling band. Or if he could coerce them into coming
with him, they'd be useless in his quest to free Ellen from
Pfnaravin.

So it was, as he'd supposed all along,
that this trek must end as it had started: in a solitary
confrontation between Mages. John vs. Pfnaravin. Crystal against
Crystal.

Thinking of Crystal power, that was
another thing to consider. The last time John had worn his
Mage-Disk, he'd been as much a danger to his friends as to the
enemy -- Crystal insanity an ever present threat to the Gem's user,
the Disk's god-like power so dangerous to a Mage's sanity that
John's plan was to don the Mage-Disk at the last moment before
confrontation with Pfnaravin. Even then, given the Malachite Mage's
greater skill with Crystal-force, John's only hope was in the luck
that had seen him through to date.

For now, following the sensible
admonition that a commander gives no orders likely to be ignored,
John must forge ahead alone.

But what to do with the rest of his
team?

He had a thought: that every army,
even a battle group of one, should protect its rear.

"Coluth? Golden? Tangu. Philelph."
Coluth and Golden coming to attention, the sailors to the rear
approaching, all -- John noticed -- staying well away from the
border. "I want you to remain here to guard my back against the
Malachite troops that we know are on our heels. How many Malachites
Helianthin has given 'permission' to come after us, I don't know.
Considering our numbers, I can't think many. In any case, what I
need most is time to find Pfnaravin. And to give me that time, I'd
like you to employ harassing tactics against whatever troops are
after us. You've got some arrows, Golden?" Golden nodded. "As for
the rest of you, there's a simple weapon the Anglo-Saxons employed
against the Normans at the battle of Hastings." Blank stares.
"Another place. Another time."

John started over. "What matters is
that this weapon is easy to make and works pretty well. First, hack
down some tree limbs. After stripping off their collateral
branches, pry up some of the foot thick rocks we've been stumbling
over along the way, tying a rock to the end of each tree limb. When
you want to do damage to the enemy, grab the other end of the
branch and swing the stone round and round before letting go of the
handle, a rock thrown like that hitting with surprising
force.

"Don't take any chances. Stay behind
the trees until ready to hit and run. Against a superior force, the
only thing that works is guerilla tactics."

"Guerilla?" Coluth asked.

"It means strike, then fall back
before they know what's hit them. If I know soldiers, they'll not
want to rush into the woods after a phantom enemy, splitting up to
do that making them even more vulnerable to attack. Your job will
be to take any safe chance that presents itself to slow down their
advance."

Damn! How did John explain guerilla
tactics without a reference to angry American colonials
pot-shotting British soldiers as the Brits' returned from Lexington
and Concord? Or, for that matter, what happened to the ponderous
American army in Vietnam.

"I can do that," Golden said soberly.
Not we. But I. An assertion John believed. For,
once-upon-another-time, John remembered seeing Golden throw knives
with deadly accuracy. Figured that if the young man could handle
arrows as well as he could "shivs," he'd be a one man wrecking crew
-- John not wanting to explain what a wrecking crew might
be.

The plan communicated, smiles
conquered frowns on the sailor's faces.

"If there is time," Golden added, "we
can make barriers on the trail. Dig traps."

"Good. Get to it, then."

John's men jumping to obey the lesser
of the orders he might have given, he turned to weave his way
around the last of Realgar's trees, again to halt at the edge of
the crimson band.

Sucking in a calming breath -- he'd
caught some of the others' fear -- he eased a foot across the
border, the Cinnabar sky now a scarlet flame, the air resembling
November's chill. Finding that his forward foot would "hold,"
carefully lifting his other foot, he slid it across the line, John
now wholly within the ruby band.

To experience ... some pull ... though
less than anywhere he'd been in this world of shifting gravity
bands.

Looking down, he saw he was up to his
ankles in brittle brown grass, his steps crunching the scraggly
plants to powder, the dust floating around him, too little gravity
to make the grass-granules settle, John already feeling like
sneezing as the pulverized vegetation rose to tickle his
nose.

The only way to get out of the swirl
of grass-powder was to keep moving -- John taking another step to
find that the most mincing motion threatened to bounce him skyward
-- perhaps never to float down again.

This was no way to make progress, John
bending over to examine the ground.

Grass.

Brittle if stepped on; the tangled
roots of it straggling out of bare ground.

A potential solution to his motion
problem?

Sliding the toes of his soft leather
boots along the ground, he was able to hook them under the grass
runners in front of him, the root-tangle ... holding.

So, the way to make time -- though
still at an agonizingly slow pace -- was to shuffle forward,
sliding your shoes under the swirl of grass growing from loose
soil.

Standing carefully, scuttling forward,
he passed the damaged trading slab, after that circling the geysers
of blasted-up earth, grass-powder masking his wake like a heavy
fog.

He was bird dogging Pfnaravin, though,
the track through the grass in front of him clear to anyone looking
for it.

John wondered if the invisible
"flyers" high above were aware of his presence, these "bird men"
reputed to have the eyes of eagles.

Before him, the ground rose and fell,
the terrain more swells and depressions than hillocks and valleys,
Pfnaravin somewhere ahead. And Ellen, John increasingly thinking of
her as his ticket home, instead of as the love interest she used to
be.

John wondered of Pfnaravin's "rock"
solution to the low gravity problem was better than John's method
of snaking forward. Not that it mattered. However long it took,
John was determined to catch the shifty Mage.

Except that John was going more slowly
than a moment ago. Now, slower still.

Trying to avoid a quick movement that
could spring him into the sky, John bent down again to look at his
feet. Saw that, beside the grass roots keeping him from flying up
with every step, his ankles had picked up silver threads, the
threads slowing him down.

Careful to keep one foot secure under
grass roots, he tried to wrench the other foot free, only to fail,
John now seeing threads wrap themselves?? around his
knees.

No. Not wrapping themselves. For,
looking closer, John saw that tiny spiders spun these threads,
spider-webs now circling his ankles and knees, John no longer able
to move.

Attempting to flail his arms to wrench
himself loose, John found his hands and arms drawn to his sides,
multiple spider spinnings pinning them there with the combined
strength of iron.

Wrapped up before he realized it, he
heard a creaking sound, John straining in the vermilion light to
see the ground open before him, a hole yawning five feet
ahead.

From the cavity, bending over to exit
a narrow tunnel, then stretching up, up -- to eight feet tall at
least -- were ... men. Or what John took for men: small, alabaster
heads atop elongated bodies; long, thin arms ending in white,
finger-tendriled hands.

Men. Coming out from underground. One
after the other. Five. Ten. Straightening to circle him.

Were these the "flyers" of Cinnabar?
Could John talk to them?

"I'm John Lyon, the Mage of
Stil-de-grain," he said, in as authoritarian a voice as a man could
make, bound hand and foot.

Nothing. Except for the men yo-yoing
spider threads at his body, the ends circling his waist, sticking
there. After that, the man-creatures moving from the front, they
tugged on the threads behind him until John was toppled on his
back, his head hitting hard enough to produce the kind of stars
never seen in this iron domed world.

The last John saw of the dusty,
vermilion light of Cinnabar was when, first his body, then his
head, was pulled down the "man" hole, the trap door closing to shut
out the sky.

It was as if the earth itself had
swallowed him -- as a first step to digesting him whole!

* * * * *

The sailors and Golden were doing what
the Mage said to do. But not Platinia. She was following the Mage.
Her Mage. Able to do that because she had seen what the Mage had
done. Trap his feet in the grass.

Platinia could do that.

And she did do that.

He did not see her because of the dust
he was making, and that was good. Platinia could not breathe the
dusty air, and that was bad. What she could do was walk to the side
to stay out of the Mage's dust. To one side, she could breathe. A
little better.

She did not like this place. A place
where she was even smaller than in other places. She did not look
smaller. But was sure she was smaller because she felt so
tiny!

And she was cold, small people going
cold faster than big people. Platinia pulled her robe tight around
her because of the cold.

The sky was a pretty red. But she soon
was tired of looking up at it.

As she walked, she made sharp sounds
in the dry grass. But she got tired of listening to those
sounds.

There were no trees to see here. No
colored birds. No pretty flutterbys. Right away, she was tired of
looking at the dust the Mage was making up ahead. And that she was
making back behind.

If she stopped for even a short time,
the dust came up to make her sneeze.

There was nothing interesting here.
She wished the Mage would turn back.

And there it was again! That voice
inside her head. A voice no one else could hear, but that she could
hear. A voice she had heard for an up-light. Maybe two.

Pfnaravin's voice!

He was entering her mind as she could
do to other people's minds. Sometimes. Not to make her feelings
stronger as she could do to others. But to ... steal her thoughts
about the Mage, John-Lyon. Was he following Pfnaravin? Did
John-Lyon carry with him the golden Crystal-Disk of
Stil-de-grain?

Though Platinia tried to keep her
secrets from the old Mage, she could not. John-Lyon did have his
Mage-Crystal. She had felt it through his robe after the Mage of
the green eyes slept. High in a tree. She had not meant to find
that out. Only to touch the Mage, Platinia liking to do that when
it was safe. When he was asleep.

The Mage Pfnaravin was a bad man. And
still, she could not keep him from her thoughts. He knew what she
knew. She could not help that.

It was also true that when the old
Mage forced a thread of Mage-Magic into her mind, on the same
thread, could she see back into his mind. A little. He still had
the woman with him. Finding that out, Platinia did her best to make
the Mage, Pfnaravin, hate this Ellen, so that he would hill her.
But Platinia could not do that because Pfnaravin had no feelings
about the woman. He did not love her. He did not hate her. He did
not think of her at all. It was enough for the old Mage too know
that the women was why John-Lyon came after him. Pfnaravin wanted
John-Lyon to come. Platinia could not tell why.

Up ahead, John-Lyon had stopped,
Platinia almost catching up before she could think to stop
also!

After that, there came a sound in this
red land of dust. A sound different from the crunch of feet that
made the dust.